Saturday, April 12, 2014

"rocky" on broadway.

so i've been hearing some rumblings about rocky on broadway for a few weeks now. it's only been at the winter garden theater now for a couple of months, so it's still a new phenomenon. i've seen photos here & there on the instagrams, on some of these morning news shows, reviews in local newspapers...& they've been good rumblings. i've been intensely curious - so curious i went & bought ben & i tickets to catch the show this last week (we went on a weeknight, which was the best decision ever: cheaper tickets, lots of empty seats [we had an entire row to ourselves!] & not a ton of weekend subway crowdedness). & let me add my voice to the rumblings: rocky is AMAZING!! we loved it. it was so fun. anyone & everyone should go see it. i should say i tend to be a pretty fair critic & want the best for everyone on the stage at any given time, but despite this, rocky was some of the most thrilling stuff i've seen on broadway (not that i've seen a whole lot, mind you), especially the italian stallion's big fight with apollo at the end. here's kind of a funny video i found on the youtube that does a really good job of communicating the feel of the musical:

here's what the show looked like at the beginning. we sat in the very last row of the theater (cheap seats!), but the view was still fantastic, & look how empty it is! only one other couple came & sat in front of us after this picture was taken:

giddy at intermission:

& the photo i slapped up on instagram with the caption "seeing "rocky" tonight with this knockout" (that's ben. ben is the knockout)

at intermission they had this pretty hilarious countdown to the fight, & every two minutes or so the days would tick down...if i remember correctly, by the time the second half of the show started it was 33 days to the fight:

so they definitely DID do all the good parts from the movie, they sang "eye of the tiger" & "gonna fly now," rocky ran up the stairs triumphantly, punched the hanging meat at paulie's job, shouted "adrian!" after he goes the distance with apollo...all of it. all with great seventies outfits (i want apollo creed's fabulous wardrobe) & really quite nice music.

& they did the coolest thing for rocky's fight with apollo at the end. they had the first 20 rows of seats stand up & go watch up on the stage (you can see them in the bleachers there, under that big jumbotron) & then they pushed the ring out on top of those seats - so the fight was kind of out in the audience! we felt so close to the action. & they make it this whole big espn type thing, with live video & stats & announcers &...it was unlike anything else i've seen! the audience got really into it, too, like it was a real fight.

do you see the people in front of us, like, standing out of their seats & craning their necks to watch the fight? so funny. don't worry, we also totally did that - we actually stood up for a lot of it, because we were in the very last wall & there was only wall behind us.

LOVE WINS, you guys, LOVE WINS.

they also slipped these great bookmarks into our playbills, but then i went & lost mine. but hashtag rocky broadway!